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Gladstone Prize Winning Book

Congratulations to IRCI researcher Dr Matthew Champion, whose University of Chicago Press book ‘The Fullness of Time’ has won the Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone Prize. The prize is for the best work of history on a topic not primarily related to British history that is the author’s first sole book publication.

According to the judges, ‘The Fullness of Time is a dazzling tour de force. It investigates the notions of both ‘time’ and ‘fullness’, connecting the emotional and affective significances of time with its structuring functions. Instead of the traditional narrative of ‘merchant mechanical time’ usurping that of ‘religious sacred time’, the book demonstrates how developments in time-keeping were incorporated into devotions and liturgy. The way that the mysteries of time unfold and are opened up to the reader makes it feel as if another world is being unlocked. Its interdisciplinary approach allows for the blended use of multiple source types – including art, architecture, image, sound, print, text, and ritual – facilitating an immersion in the fifteenth-century sensory and cultural world. The text brooks no concessions in terms of its scholarly rigour and references, yet the clarity and flow of the style turn it into a pleasurable read to which all the judges kept wanting to return’.